{"id":3772,"date":"2020-05-09T21:12:53","date_gmt":"2020-05-10T02:12:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/?p=3772"},"modified":"2020-05-09T21:12:56","modified_gmt":"2020-05-10T02:12:56","slug":"poison-ivy-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/2020\/05\/09\/poison-ivy-tree\/","title":{"rendered":"Poison Ivy Tree"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Far from me to be an expert in plants and wildlife\u2014for that, hunt down the many, many blogs, articles, and newspaper features by my wife Mary Ann Melton\u2014but I\u2019m spending a lot more time that usual doing yard work on our property.  This year, I\u2019m seeing things that I\u2019ve missed before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Just yesterday, I glanced over at the trunk of a Black Walnut tree and saw what almost looked like an anaconda.  But I quickly saw that it was the trunk of a poison ivy plant that, long ago, had climbed up the trunk of the walnut tree as a vine and had gradually taken over the old tree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, I\u2019ve been fighting poison ivy at our place for years, not because any of our family is allergic to the plant, but because it\u2019s a nuisance vine that\u2019s a parasite on many trees. It\u2019s a never-ending battle to keep them under control. I know our neighbors had brought in goats to roam their place to eat out all the undergrowth, poison ivy included, but the fencing issues alone kept the goat option from my serious contention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this one poison ivy\u2014I\u2019d call it a tree if it stood on it\u2019s own\u2014must have been feeding it\u2019s seeds to the birds for years.  I was instantly ready to cut it down.  I grabbed the electric branch-trimmer (an 8-inch chainsaw on a pole) and daisy-chained five heavy duty extension cords from the house down to the tree.  And then nothing worked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walking the length of the combined cords, I couldn\u2019t find anything wrong and daylight was fading.  Under the assumption that I shouldn\u2019t be handling dangerous power tools while I was tired in poor lighting, I put it on the next day\u2019s to-do list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, mid morning, I rechecked the daisy chain of cords and nothing was wrong.  The electric chainsaw fired right up.  In seconds, I\u2019d cut the poison ivy trunk in two places and collected the middle piece for further inspection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Just as I\u2019d expected, there were growth rings, twenty-two of them at first glance.  This poison ivy plant had been growing and seeding my place for more than two decades, and it took a time like this for me to notice that it existed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll be looking for any more grandfather poison ivy plants in the future, and I actually have a glimmer of hope that maybe I can get the infestation under control.  If not, at least it keeps me busy trying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Far from me to be an expert in plants and wildlife\u2014for that, hunt down the many, many blogs, articles, and newspaper features by my wife Mary Ann Melton\u2014but I\u2019m spending a lot more time that usual doing yard work on our property.  This year, I\u2019m seeing things that I\u2019ve missed before. Just yesterday, I glanced… Continue reading Poison Ivy Tree<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[550],"tags":[552,553],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4t90x-YQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3772"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3772"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3777,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3772\/revisions\/3777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}